Posts Tagged ‘Animal behavior’

Animals in Translation

Update:  Temple Grandin has recently published a new animal book titled Animals Make us Human and is a currently the #1 ranked zoology book at amazon!

Philosophers and scientists have long wondered what goes on in the minds of animals, and this fascinating study gives a wealth of illuminating insights into that mystery.

Temple Grandin has been known to crawl through slaughterhouses to get a sense of what the animals there are experiencing. An autistic woman who as a child was recommended for institutionalization, Grandin has managed not only to enter society’s mainstream but ultimately to become prominent in animal research.

An associate professor at Colorado State University, she designs facilities used worldwide for humane handling of livestock. She also invented a “hug machine” (based on a cattle-holding chute) that calms autistic children. In Animals in Translation, co-authored with science writer Catherine Johnson, Grandin makes an intriguing argument that, psychologically, animals and autistic people have a great deal in common—and that both have mental abilities typically underestimated by normal people.

The book is a valuable, if speculative, contribution to the discussion of both autism and animal intelligence, two subjects on which there is little scientific consensus. Autistics, in Grandin’s view, represent a “way station” between average people, with all their verbal and conceptual abilities, and animals. In touring animal facilities, Grandin often spots details—a rattling chain, say, or a fluttering piece of cloth—that disturb the animals but have been overlooked by the people in charge. She also draws on psychological studies to show how oblivious humans can be to their surroundings. Ordinary humans seem to be less detail-oriented than animals and autistics.

Grandin argues that animals have formidable cognitive capabilities, albeit specialized ones, whereas humans are cognitive generalists. Dogs are smell experts, birds are migration specialists, and so on. In her view, some animals have a form of genius—much as autistic savants can perform feats of memory and calculation far beyond the abilities of average people. Some dogs, for example, can predict when their owner is about to have a seizure. Delving into animal emotion, aggression and suffering, Grandin gives tips that may be useful for caretakers of pets and farm animals.

She also notes that humans seem to need, and thrive on, the proximity of animals. Indeed, she states provocatively, in the process of becoming human we gave up something primal, and being around animals helps us get a measure of that back.

In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall book review

In the Shadows of Man

by Jane Goodall

Ahh, the classic Jane Goodall book, In the Shadow of Man.  This was Jane’s first mainstream book that was published back in 1971.  The subject of this book?  Studying the wild chimpanzees and the life she lived while observing them.

In the Shadow of Man captures animals as emotional beings, something that had rarely been done. Goodall tells the story of the “F” family of chimpanzees and follows other families with many photos to go along with the stories.  It is fun to read about the chimps playing and fighting with the babboons followed by seeing a photo of a baboon charging a chimp while the chimpanzee throws a rock to defend itself.

There are many fantastic photos of Jane Goodall and the chimpanzees.  With 64 total pages of black and white photos you can really understand the life Goodall and her photographer ex-husband Hugo Van Lawick lived while.

Smile of a Dolphin not only covers dolphins but many other animals. Find out how expressive animals really are!

Remarkable Accounts of Animal Emotions

If you have ever wondered if animals truely can express emotions to their fellow beings, this book will do a great job of convincing you that they do.  The Discovery Channel backed this book and the editor, Marc Bekoff, found more than fifty experts on animals to present observations of animals evoking some kind of emotional response to such situations as losing a child, confronting an enemy, choosing a mate, or being tricked, chastised, challenged, played with, or picked on.

There are many famous “animal people”, one of them is Sue Savage-Rumbaugh of Georgia State University.  You may remember her name if you read my previous review on the book about Kanzi the Bonobo Chimpanzee who had learned to communicate with humans by learning with Lexigrams.  Another contributor, Frans de Waal, is also an author which i have wrote about, writing the “Tree of Origin” book which is a must read for evolution/animal lovers.   And i am sure you have heard of Jane Goodall, who adds two amazing stories, one of which is included in it’s entirety below. Along with these and other amazing people, there are over 120 color photographs of various animals obviously showing some kind of emotion.

How the Book is Presented

The book is a collection of very short stories, usually around 2 pages long, which makes this a GREAT coffee book or bathroom book (eww).  There are a total of four chapters:

1. Chapter One: Love
2. Chapter Two: Fear, Aggression, and Anger
3. Chapter Three: Joy and Grief
4. Chapter Four: Fellow Feelings

My favorite section of the book is the last chapter on Fellow Feelings, which tells 16 stories that include the Goodall, Waal and Savage-Rumbaugh entries.  There is one touching story by Jane Goodall that i would like to share in it’s entirety (please note that all the stories are not as sad as this, i just wanted to share this because of how emotional it is).

A Sorrow Beyond Tears
by Jane Goodall

Chimpanzees, differing from us genetically by only just over one percent, can’t be said to weep, for they don’t shed tears.  Yet they show behavior that’s associated with sadness, depression, and grief in humans: soft whimpering, crying sounds, listlessness, lack of appetite, avoidance of others.  And they show those behaviors int he same kind of situations that we do.

In 1972, in Africa’s Gombe National Park, the almost fifty-year old matriarch of our study community died.  Flo, as she was called, was with her eight-and-a-half-year-old son, Flint.  He should have been able to look after himself, easily.  Yet he’d developed a strange, abnormal dependance on his old mother, probably because she hadn’t had the energy to wean him properly.  All day he sat near her body at the edge of a small, fast flowing stream.  Occasionally he approached her, inspecting her carefully, moving all around, then grooming her a little.  He pulled her dead hand twoard him, whimpering; in life she had responded, grooming him in return.  Then he moved a few yards away to sit, hunched and motionless, eyes staring.  As darkness fell, Flint climbed into a tree and made a small nest – to spend the first night of his life alone.

On the second day Flint heard his brother calling in a nearby group, and he joined them.  Some of his depression lifted for a while, but after a few hours he suddenly left the other chimps and hurried back to the place where Flo had died.  There he sat alone, eyes staring into space.  Later he climbed slowly into a tall tree, walked along a branch, and stood staring at a large empty nest – the one that Flo had made and that he and she had slept in the previous week.  What was he thinking?  He climbed down and lay on the ground, staring at nothing.

Over the next three weeks, Flint became increasingly lethargic.  He stopped eating, and he avoided other chimps, huddling in the vegetation close to where he’d last seen Flo.  His eyes sank deep into the hollow sockets of his skull; his movements were like an old man’s.  The last short journey he made, with many pauses, was to the very place where Flo’s body had lain.

There he remained, sometimes staring and staring into the water, until he died, just three and a half weeks after losing Flo.  He died of grief.

This is my Favorite Animal Book Yet!

Out of all the animal books i have reviewed, The Smile of a Dolphin is by far my favorite book so far.  The main reason this is such an amazing book is the fact that it is a large book, which means large photos can be included.  Another nice feature is that is a collection of short stories from such amazing contributors as Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal, along with many more.  Not only that, the stories are just so amazing and emotional, i really reccomend everyone should check this book out.

For further reading, please check out all of the animal books that i have reviewed.  Also please feel free to check out some of my animal pictures that i have taken!